By Amy Tan | July 2011

Our collective experiences of a weekend with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in Viterbo, Italy on what meaning they carry for each of us and how we will translate them into as we return to our own lives and work.

"And as we touch, so are we touched."

We came from diverse backgrounds of culture, work and origin together in this weekend to experience the work and process of embodiment taught by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and her concepts of embryology as a study of how we can remember our journey of growth. Through our embodiment of touching and feeling the interiors of our own bodies using visualizations, contacting each other with our partner explorations, we came to be in touch with the humble grandeur of humanity that led us to this workshop, to find some answers to our own questions about how can we make a positive difference to lives of children, especially those with special needs.

By working with the children, we could create a possibility for them to know and feel the space and world they live in as alive and energetic, through physical awareness of their bodies and the spaces they inhabit and interact with. We learned how to look from a perspective and an openness towards the children who are coming to offer us something for all humanity so we have a chance to learn from them. What are the children giving to us that we can give someone else? The days were a continuous inquiry and exploration of how do we rediscover each of our resource, our guarantee, trust and faith through our own body's intelligence and journey commencing from the moment we existed as a single cell of an embryo. This became our common theme during this workshop.

The journey of growth we have each taken from this single cell till being born into and living now in our world, contained all these elements of resource, guarantee, trust and faith. In Bonnie's words, "We are not here to learn something new, we are only here to remember." And we were able to remember through this path she had paved for us, from her own journey. So what we have to offer to another person is not new, we are not teaching them new things but instead we are simply guiding them to remember what they have forgotten through a communion with their own bodies as we already possessed all we need in our embryonic journey - our resources of health, resilience and recovery lay within us. Drawing solutions from the outside to heal is no longer necessary because we already have everything we need and all there is to do is remember.

We remembered our body through the movement explorations of sensing embryological-related points in our body, such as the interior connection of the pectinate line and the oropharyngeal membrane. It produced voluminous descriptions of experiences from us. Our experiences ranged from a bodily sensation to a description of complex intertwined relationships of a physical sensation to its meaning based on our own individual perception. This perception eventually led us to a link to our own stories and its potentiality and effect in our future actions and reactions. This resonance from our inner self into our outer kinesphere, into the space we inhabit was possible by initiating inside our bodies a small movement, usually imperceptible to the naked eye of another.

These embodiment experiences changed too the ways which we perceive the problems of our world - the war and fighting, the poverty and injustice, the deterioration of our environment and nature and more. Our days in the workshop became an invitation to forget the memories of these problems through helping someone else remember their journey, their body. Not to forget our organs, our bones, our nerves and all the rich systems that keep us alive. Also we were urged not to forget our own tears, all which we shed for the diff i culties and joys we experienced throughout our lives. Through this remembrance of our bodies and tears, we found a possibility to connect with our human soul. Forging this connection provided us with an opportunity to forget our existing ways of perceiving the current state of the world we live in and its problems, as we choose to tap into a potential and a choice for seeing and staying in touch with its miracles.

To sit together in our group circle, sharing our stories depicted a ring of reflection as our individual experiences resonated in each other. A small movement had the potential to produce a grand resonance, once again contained many things we need and already possess, if we allowed ourselves to give time and space for this very small thing, a movement or awareness in our body. This small action then, was in fact quite big when given a chance to ripple.

Finally inspired to Bonnie's words, "There are many paths, find one that feels right for you and that path becomes your prayer", the idea of praying became a new one. Without attachment to a particular dogma or religion but just a presence to this continuous dialogue of embodiment, which our souls could achieve because we have a body to discover and wonder. This was the prayer, one which will carry us through our own quiet ocean of tears.